Patrick Sean Tomlinson / @stealthygeek / "Torque Wheeler" / @RealAutomanic / Kempesh / Padawan v2.5 - "Conservative" sci-fi author with TDS, armed "drunk with anger management issues" and terminated parental rights, actual tough guy, obese, paid Quasi, paid thousands to be repeatedly unbanned from Twitter

  • 🔧 At about Midnight EST I am going to completely fuck up the site trying to fix something.
Even Pat can't pretend he sold books, desperation: Capture.PNG
Patrick, it doesn't count if you only brought 6 books and a mountain of pepperoni to begin with.

Oh, I almost forgot, someone needs to have Quasi ask his lawyer to ask the court to have Fatrick surrender his passport due to flight risk. The risk can be demonstrated when he couldn't be properly served because he was out of the country. Also, his recent international travel record indicates his willingness to leave the country to avoid his obligations.
I assure you, Patrick is too heavy to be a flight risk.
 
Patrick, it doesn't count if you only brought 6 books and a mountain of pepperoni to begin with.


I assure you, Patrick is too heavy to be a flight risk.
No, he's definitely a risk to flight, saw somone that may have been larger than Fatrick on a tiny plane today. I checked to make sure there was a rear emergency exit as there was no way you could make it out the front if the guy was injured.
 
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You're somewhat misremembering. Those implants were more like a literal brain hack than anything. The bad guys put some nanotech in people's brains that sat around in their cerebellum until temporarily hijacking the motor system to do a small, limited task, typically something lethal to the person. Was very useful to the Mesans when it came to cleaning up loose ends or making people into sleeper agents since "brain hijacking nanotech" isn't something coroners or criminal investigators are used to looking for, and having a person's bodyguard do a small, limited task like "draw weapon and spray room" is a hell of a way to surprise your target. It had no ability to do anything else like phone home and its onboard memory couldn't store more than few relatively simple movements for the person's body to do.
My apologies, you are quite correct. I got my wires crossed with the implant and nanites from the Prince Roger series by Weber (same author for none fans, and similar tech types). Which once again could be hacked by nanotech, happened at the start of the first book, but were far more versatile and much more intimately entwined with body functions - one example being the assassin program the royal family get uploaded as part of their standard package. Its a fun little deus ex machina for tight spots which Weber uses both sparingly and well.
 
If he gets sent to jail for contempt, doesn't he stay in jail until he meets the requirements to no longer be in contempt of court? In that case, pat could be in jail indefinitely since he doesn't believe in changing his tactic. Or could jail be enough to break him from his delusion?
Yes, he could theoretically be kept in NOT because he owes money (no "debtors prison" in the US) but if he just never complies with the process. That being said, in cases where it's obvious the prison enjoyer won't comply, like Chelsea Manning, the judge might eventually let them out because the punishment isn't working and is unlikely to achieve the goal.

If Pat gets a slap on the wrist and enjoys prison so much that his behavior doesn't change, I imagine a judge will let him back out with more aggressive tactics enacted to extract Quasi's money before Pat has an opportunity to spend it like garnishment.
 
I was about to say the same. It's called the "Innsmouth look" in the story. Pat being a human-Deep One hybrid  would explain a lot, but how would one get so far inland?
I don't think Fatty's dad got cucked by a Deep One. A Derp One maybe.
So much jolly on his face when talking about stalker child compares to him on that shitty panel
How could anyone take himself seriously ever again if they were at a panel in what used to be the premier game convention founded by Gary Gygax himself, and you're on a panel with a morbidly obese middle aged man wearing a backwards baseball cap who has never sold a book in his life, and he's childing everyone, and there are more people on the panel than in the audience.

Personally if I ever had that experience I'd just suck down a hollow point to the brainstem. What a bunch of faggot losers.
Patrick is sentenced to 30 days for contempt, but can be released if he agrees to pay Quasi. He holds out for two days, then goes sobbing to the court, promising to pay.
Patrick is sentenced to enjoy prison until he pays, but he continues to refuse to pay because he has fallen in love with Tyrone and Jamal.
Even Pat can't pretend he sold books, desperation:
Even Fatty's lies defy physical reality. Put six books into an otherwise empty suitcase. Count how many it would take to fill the rest. Not much. Also Fatty was Tweeting or yeeting or xeeting or whatever it's called now nearly the whole time of the book signing period. The fat fuck was sitting alone while other people signed books because nobody gives a flying fuck about Fatty's shitfics.
 
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Even Pat can't pretend he sold books, desperation:View attachment 5255934

Also I don't think Obama factored "38k in debt and in contempt of court" into the ACA.

View attachment 5255939
Obama? Pat needs to be thanking Trump for those sweet PPP loans he and Niki used to defraud American taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.

Speaking of that, is there any chance that if Pat gets dragged into a debtor's exam, the PPP fraud comes up and Daddy Gubmint can send Fat Ricky to prison?
 
The Ark chapters 2 & 3 coming in to Flip. i had plenty of free time this weekend and rather enjoyed continuing this little side-show.

Zero Finals: Zero gravity sports are a trope ... I'm going to assume it's some variant of rugby with padding and otherwise ignore it.

Plant: So far the capabilities of these implants seem like a direct rip-off from Niven's "Oath of Fealty" though he's far from the only one who's played with the concept. They're not as advanced as Weber's implants in the Honorverse (which can literally take over their owner if they're hacked) but they're a bit more than the basic bitch "built in telephone" that was standard up to the mid 80's.

The world: I can tell right now from the words Ark, "other module," "Full weight," "never tasted cheese" that this is taking place on a generational none bussard type (it's a sort of interstellar ramjet - intake scoops at the front, usually some magical forcefield type thing, and engines at the other end) starship consisting of a zero gravity core with engines, cargo, and ancillary services and at least two rotating rings to provide simulated gravity on it's way from Earth to Tau Ceti, and most of the way through it's journey, since they're talking about flipping the ship to start decelerating with respect to the Tau Ceti system.

[In response to the Plants] Those implants were more like a literal brain hack than anything. The bad guys put some nanotech in people's brains that sat around in their cerebellum until temporarily hijacking the motor system to do a small, limited task, typically something lethal to the person. Was very useful to the Mesans when it came to cleaning up loose ends or making people into sleeper agents since "brain hijacking nanotech" isn't something coroners or criminal investigators are used to looking for, and having a person's bodyguard do a small, limited task like "draw weapon and spray room" is a hell of a way to surprise your target. It had no ability to do anything else like phone home and its onboard memory couldn't store more than few relatively simple movements for the person's body to do.
i'm extremely grateful to hear from you both on this little endeavor. this is actually the kind of discussion i was hoping to drum up with this readthrough. i'm still unclear what flipping means in Patrick's context but i'm starting to believe I'm overthinking it and it should be interpreted literally... and how literally i'm still not sure lol. to be honest i'm completely unfamiliar with what you mean by "generational none" and would be very interested to hear you elaborate more on that and related science-fiction works. i think it would give us even more insight into Patrick's wordsmithing, and his attempts to extract nerd cred.

(Chapter 1 Here: Onion/Tor Link | Page 2014, Post #40,276)

before we get underway: i made some mistakes in the last post. i was actually rushing to post it to get to bed and missed two details: Bryan Benson is chief constable of his jurisdiction, and shares that title with a man named Bahadur over in Chinatown, whom i also forgot to list. my apologies.

chapter 1 was one of the worst introductions to a book i've personally had to soldier through. nine characters were named yet only two of them are actively participating in the story, those being Detective Bryan Benson and his sidekick Theresa Alexopolous. [lol no, it's primarily Bryan so far.] they're part of the Ark's police department equivalent... i think. their roles are left completely up to reader interpretation and they have no meaningful establishment. what we do know is they don't have captains! ah-ah-ah - they have chiefs!

all we know is that Bryan and Theresa have been contacted by a First Officer (of what, who knows) to investigate a missing persons case. Edmond Laraby is missing, off the space-grid, and apparently important to a science director's work on terraformation. him being off the grid matters because this is technically a dystopia, so everyone was given Elon Musk's brain implant (called a *plant*) that, quote, *eavesdrops*, on the brain's faculties and enables Big Brotherman's invasive tracking capabilities. i refuse to stop reading just because Patrick's writing is this bad. i will finish what i start on principle, and because, maybe because i'm edgy, i want to see for myself a little glimpse into this fat man's incredibly large head.

i also read through the Starship Repo review a while back by @ShinyStar and just did again earlier today. if it were any other author, i wouldn't harp on this, but Patrick's fascination with young girls in fiction is weird, as is the consistent manner in which he applies it. Starship Repo's protagonist is an underage girl and it contained enough sexual references to submit to an erotic text adventure game. as a reminder, in The Ark, in chapter 1, we get a completely throwaway line about a dead six-year old girl being hauled out of a body of water. why did she die? no fucking idea. still hasn't been brought up. it's completely fine to have some traumas in a character's life, but you can't just mic drop a dead child and have it contribute nothing to the fucking text. knowing what we do of Patrick, the implications are, as I said, weird. writers write what they know. if you don't know much about the world, then you sure as shit know a lot about yourself.

and one more thing in my write-up: i was using colored highlights with no rhyme or reason in the previous post, but going forward i'm holding myself to a more organized use of them.

Blue - Important passages; information for the thread and review.
Purple - Semi-important passages; another delineator if needed.
Red - Errors and critical issues.
Yellow - Pointless, Meandering Bullshit.
Green - Tertiary delineator, or praise for Patrick.

so with that all in mind, let's continue. i hope you're ready for some poop jokes.


==Characters Introduced in Order of Appearance; Character Status==
Bryan Benson,
A police(?) detective and our leading man, a gigasaurus who loves sports and evading responsibility, possibly taxation too.

Chao Feng,
The First Officer (of what?), and a douchedrinker according to Benson.

Lau,
The captain of Patrick's favorite Chinese sports team.

Edmond Laraby,
A missing geneticist, dead or alive off the grid.

da Silva,
A science director, probably a modern-day Strong Female Protagonist.

Vasquez,
Not to be confused with Vasquez from Aliens; a player in Patrick's favorite sports game.

Lindqvist,
A sports player not even worthy of description by Patrick. Must be a PCJ caricature.

Theresa Alexopolous,
A lieutenant, and a Duty Officer (of what?), sidekick to the Chad Bryan Benson.

Bahadur,
Chief Constable of the Chinatown District, on par with Bryan Benson.

Nibiru,
Not a character, but a black hole on the edge of a solar system. Probably the best character, though, if it's anything like Black Hole Sun.

Devorah Feynman,
Curator of the Museum, wants to preserve humanity's culture by locating and securing authentic works of art.

Constable Korolev,
Theresa sent him to back-up Benson; a rookie that's greener than grass.


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--E1: The chapter opens with Det. Bryan Benson locating and investigating Edmond Laraby's residence, backed up by Theresa from the *Stationbase*. Someone else is living there now, a young lady who just recently moved in. She passes on Laraby's forwarding address, which happens to be a short jaunt from the old house.

Typically I will save Red highlights for special mentions & gripes, but this is a massive error that I can't ignore: Benson isn't even named in the first paragraph of the chapter, so we have no idea who the fuck "He" refers to in the sentence "He updated Theresa", we just have to infer it's Bryan. Patrick leaves the reader completely untethered while bombarding them with pertinent information. This is Bad Writing.


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--E2: If we had time for *Zero Finals*, we have plenty of time for Benson to browbeat a Constable that he specifically requested Theresa to send (why are they called Constables?) and drop those unexplained terms again: *Tau Ceti G* (it's a real OG now!), *the Flip*, *Codes of Conservation*. All of this is meandering and pointless; it is shameless padding.


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--E3: Disco Elysium this is not...


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--E4: I was so blindsided by the use of 'cattle' that I wasn't prepared for ramshod worldbuilding and character development. It was said in the previous chapter (and I glazed over it twice) that Detective Bryan Benson is the *Chief Constable* (he shared the title with a man named Bahadur in the Ark's Chinatown PD, whom I also forgot to list) but this was a much simpler way to inform me, the reader, that I'm left a little stunned.

We learn that the vast majority of surviving humanity are being housed in barbaric conditions. The passage implies a chronic overcrowding issue to me. Most of humanity in the present are descendants of the fifty-thousand men and women chosen for evacuation, which must have been an indescribably horrifying process with a massive expansion of law enforcement and military capabilities just to cope.

But because this is Patrick S. Tomlinson's work of art, we don't get any glimpse into that cataclysmic event. No, instead we get toilet humor! The cattle, who are meant to be the sustainable population and growth vectors on humanity's new home, call the Ark's official crew "floaters" because they spend most of their time in micro-gravity... and because there's a turd they can't flush or get rid of. Thanks, Patrick. The first time I read the term "floaters" in Chapter 1, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you were referring to Eye Floaters and setting up something vaguely interesting. Instead, you made like a monkey and threw shit.

Moving on from the fecal matter, this passage actually reminded me of a one-shot Korean manwha called *Hotel: since 2079* in which a similar extinction event takes place. My memories on it are a bit fuzzy; however, humanity does not build a ship and fly to another habitable world. Instead, they develop an Ark spacecraft (like Noah's Ark) and an accompanying AI to send into space to find another planet that'll be built up by robots who will then come back to Earth to save it. At the same time, they construct a gigantic tower at the South Pole to hold the DNA of every species on Earth, and much of the story revolves around its AI, named Louis Armstrong, doing its best to survive the calamity over thousands of years. It does, and is eventually being found by robotic pioneers from the Ark who eventually succeeded in their mission. Because human DNA is preserved, life will begin again on a now-stable Earth.


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--E5: Can't go a hundred words without more bullshit about *Zero Finals*.


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--E6: With no distractions, we get some actual action and movement in the story, for the first time. Det. Benson is putting together a profile of Edmond Laraby using details from the personnel file and the conditions of his home. Laraby is the spitting image of a diligent, reliable man; he has no ongoing relationships and no family. His parents were added to *the Clock*, presumably a funerary device on the Ark. Benson loiters for a while, but the only meaningful discernment he can make is that the residence seems sterilized, too clean, too neat.

And then, props to Patrick, a natural segue into what *Tau Ceti G* actually is, albeit from stock images taken by a surveillance probe. Again, props to Patrick for a believable and rational sci-fi concept: the Pathfinder probe is described as being a prototype for the Ark vessel that humanity is riding on, and was eventually modified into an early-warning platform they launched ahead of themselves to map the flight route between the Ark and Tau Ceti G. it reached Tau Ceti G and engaged its secondary protocol as a landing craft that would lay down colonial foundations for the colonists to build off of and perform exploration before humanity touches down. This is great. This is why I read sci-fi. I especially like that the neural internet spends all its time bitching about sports and arguing about what it'll be like to live on Tau Ceti G.


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--E7: Even more movement, development, plot, and a little sequel baiting. Though it's not relevant to what's going on now, the mention of an unusual landmass on the new world and a persistent cyclone shredding anything that gets close is interesting, it's sci-fi. This is the kind of thing that becomes another subtle hook for readers like myself!

After this reflection on Tau Ceti G, Benson discovers that Laraby's a connoisseur of the arts... and that one painting is, in fact, real.


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--E8: We are promptly introduced to *Devorah Feynman*, who snoops for artifacts of human culture like the painting Benson just discovered. We also see some natural use of the *plant* device. I appreciate Devorah already, because she's a plausible character with obvious goals and motivations relating to securing and preserving lost works of authentic art. All in all, pretty good... except for the part about Benson "thinking off-com". This is a contradiction of the *plant's* stated functions.


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--E9: Devorah conducts an examination and confirms the painting is genuine and likely to have been painted on Earth before the launch of the Ark. Quite a find for someone like her. For something like this, I probably won't include really large images of pages in the future but the whiplash I feel from actually reading something tangible after six or seven pages of aborted Christopher Nolan ideas cannot be understated. Once again, standard stuff, understandable... but as a reminder, it comes after seven pages of disorienting, conflicting subjects. I've already forgotten all the bad jokes, at least.


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--E10: Devorah clues us into an event known as the *Heist* (noticing a pattern with Patrick's proper nouns yet?), where hundreds of priceless cultural relics were stolen and the previous curator was sacked for it. Yes, I'm having a hard time believing it too, that Patrick can mention an event and actually explain it organically. There's an argument to be had about constantly introducing topics and then expositing on them, but this is a YA-tier book as it is, so whatever.


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--E11: Further reading indicates that Laraby is classed economically as middle-management within the Ark's crew hierarchy. Another point I'll give props to Patrick on is that there's much more chemistry between the elderly Devorah and Det. Benson than between Benson and Theresa. These two actually hold a conversation and reveal things to the reader!


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--E12: Devorah requests an escort with the precious cargo, so Benson calls out to the previously nameless Constable, named *Korolev*, to safely transport her. We learn that Constables appear to only be equipped with Stun-sticks, electrical spikes that cause grand-mal seizures and presumably instant incapacitation. Patrick reveals to us that he watched police training exercises before writing this and knows that trainees are tasered to give them a sense of what they're deploying on perps. Apparently this thing can be used at range despite it being called a stick, but to me it sounds like a Star Trek Phaser.

Devorah continues to steal the entire chapter before it ends neatly.

The first half of Chapter 2 is a continuation of the bullshit from Chapter 1: complete and utter nonsense riddled with major, minor and fundamental writing errors.

The second half surprises with coherency in worldbuilding and characterization, with one caveat that I'll get to. Now that the investigation of Edmond Laraby's disappearance has begun in earnest, we start with a look at his home and personnel file, and are introduced to Tau Ceti G and what it's like, what Edmond's role in the system is, and so forth. Benson stumbles upon a clue in the form of an authentic painting, the analysis of which triggers a detection system operated by the curator of the Ark's Museum (capital M) who immediately comes down for an inspection.

Devorah, the curator, steals the entire chapter, and unlike any other character so far introduced, she is ACTUALLY a character, with clear goals and motivations, an agenda that anyone can respect, and is a likeable old spitfire who at first glance appears to have some soft connection with our protagonist. It's too soon to say I like her, but I appreciate her presence as a serious breath of fresh air, the quality of which is regularly compromised by a reminder of the unflushable turd floating in my workspace.

The caveat to this chapter's strengths, however, is that we still have no idea who the hell Bryan Benson really is, or Theresa, and we're still introducing new characters. Devorah has already made Bryan a side-show attraction in the story that's supposed to be following him. I won't say I'm cautiously optimistic about anything because, quite frankly, this book reads like a rough draft, and certainly not the first or fifth rough draft: it's blatantly unpolished and unedited.

Chapter 2 does not have any special mentions I feel need to be highlighted.

there are thirty chapters in the book so multiple may need to be covered in one post for efficiency's sake as we go along. it's likely i won't be extensively covering a lot of the middle chapters as much as the far more important beginning and end.

==Characters Introduced in Order of Appearance; Character Status==
Bryan Benson,
A police(?) detective and our leading man, a gigasaurus who loves sports and evading responsibility, possibly taxation too.

Chao Feng,
The First Officer (of what?), and a douchedrinker according to Benson.

Lau,
The captain of Patrick's favorite Chinese sports team.

Edmond Laraby,
A missing geneticist, dead or alive off the grid.

Avelina Pereira da Silva,
Science Director; Head of Environmental Research & Development. Got her full name in Chapter 3

Vasquez,
Not to be confused with Vasquez from Aliens; a player in Patrick's favorite sports game.

Lindqvist,
A sports player not even worthy of description by Patrick. Must be a PCJ caricature.

Theresa Alexopolous,
A lieutenant, and a Duty Officer (of what?), sidekick to the Chad Bryan Benson.

Bahadur,
Chief Constable of the Chinatown District, on par with Bryan Benson.

Nibiru,
Not a character, but a black hole on the edge of a solar system. Probably the best character, though, if it's anything like Black Hole Sun.

Devorah Feynman,
Curator of the Museum, wants to preserve humanity's culture by locating and securing authentic works of art.

Constable Korolev,
Theresa sent him to back-up Benson; a rookie that's greener than grass.


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--E1: Chapter 3 opens up with a visit to *the* Command Module (not capitalized in the book, even though it sounds like a very important location in the Ark) and some borderline meandering - the language is inconcrete. The highlighted sentence, however, I felt was in keeping with the sci-fi theme and the environment, and wish Patrick explored this kind of thing more. These kinds of lines, to me, are extremely valuable for the reader's imagination and how they engage with your work. Making sure they get the right message, the right tone, is imperative.


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--E2: Detective Bryan Benson is on his way to meet Director da Silva, full name *Avelina Pereira da Silva* in the Bio-Lab Module (again, not capitalized, even though it reads as "the" module and not "a" module). There's too much prissy meandering here, and all of this could have been shortened, tightened up, made punchier.


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--E3: Patrick's obsession with young girls is still on my noticeboard, especially because when young girls are brought up there seems to be a 100% consistent theme of them being harmed in some manner.


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--E4: During his internal monologue on the way meet Director da Silva, Benson laments that the "crewman culture" (uncapitalized proper noun AGAIN... and I argue it NEEDS to be, because the Ark's Crew refer to a specific hierarchy above the 'Cattle', who are the viable population to be unloaded onto the fucking colony!!), that is the Ark's official crewmembers, views watching and playing *Zero Finals* as 'beneath them'. Snooty fuckers! How dare they!


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--E5: Benson "touches" the handler with a less-than-friendly slap on the shoulder that's hard enough to send the poor man spinning. The Ark's chief constable, everybody, assaulting the waitstaff of stuck-up rich people. This is like being mad that a Mickey D's drive-thru clerk is having trouble hearing you, becoming unhinged, and "accidentally" pushing a drink back into their hand when they hand it to you to cause a spill. Jackass. I won't be forgetting any time soon that Benson is the kind of guy who doesn't regularly bathe and freshen up, which is fucking retarded because in Chapter 2, there was an entire point about how Bryan just managed to get himself an apartment with a stand-up shower, and it was presented in a way to make that sound like a big goddamn deal on this ship.

This entire process could have been avoided if he wasn't such a slob. Damn, man...


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--E6: Here's the needful on Avelina: posh, pampered, living in wealth the unwashed masses can only dream of, yada yada. Her quarters are themed around botany: Benson observes a few flora specimens that *are all a shade of purple or lavender.* Is that a clue!? Oh boy! Otherwise, it's set dressing. *Oh, and more poop jokes.*


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--E7: Avelina's mannerisms clash with her build-up: she appears as an enthusiastic middle-aged woman of striking beauty with a deeper well of patience than most nobility types would possess. Of course, there's some snide interruptions in what should be an interesting meeting with a presumably interesting, powerful, well-connected character.

Also, some mention of *the Flip* again... and we're still waiting on Patrick to get back from Hooli's all-you-can-eat night to explain what that means. If I've somehow missed it, please tell me. I'm putting this much effort in so that anyone following along can correct me.


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--E8: It's halfway through the page, past assault on a waitservant, past poop jokes, past an odd icebreaker and some awkward commentary that we're back on the plot, learning about Tau Ceti G, how its primary star affects the atmosphere and environment, and Avelina's research and experimentation into adapting humanity for the alien ecosystem. Mostly fine, but something feels lacking.


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--E9: Now Benson broaches the topic of Edmond Laraby to Director Avelina and the mood changes. I wasn't halfway into this page before I took issue with this investigative approach. There's a potpourri of minor writing issues that need to be tightened up here (how many fucking constables do you have working for you? Would've been nice to have an estimate!) but they pale in comparison to the tangent that Benson made me want to go on.


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Bryan Benson as a character has yet to be given a personality. Nothing I have read so far constitutes an identity for the man. Anyone living in the western anglosphere knows a guy (or dozen) like him and how they behave on the surface: surly, aloof, a little dysgenic... but a personality this does not make. Bryan is so far a surface-level jackass; he hasn't displayed any emotion nor demonstrated he possesses a belief system of any kind.

Final Fantasy X was an excellent story (controversial, I know) and one of the better examples of presenting a character who knows fuck-all and needs things explained to him, and thus the player/reader learns about Spira with (and through) Tidus. Bryan isn't even that. What explanations we get of in-universe terms are doled out encyclopedically. It's dry, it's boring, it's unengaging.

Compare him to Tidus, even! Who and What is Tidus? Tidus is a whiny brat, is inquisitive, a bit sensitive, a little too nosy, loves Blitzball, and one of his unspoken traits shown to the player is that he will unthinkingly throw himself into danger to save anyone he can or do the right thing, to the point he tries to fight off Sinspawn with his bare hands until Auron gives him a sword. He's stupid but headstrong and brave, easygoing and friendly, fiercely loyal and supportive. He had personality. Bryan has yet to show us ANYTHING like that, and most of what I described is what we learn about Tidus in the first few minutes of playing FFX!

I'm not as well-read as I could or should be, but I can be absolutely certain that you fine kiwis reading this thread can reference any number of detective stories where we get SOME idea of our leading guy or gal right away as well as the promise of future revelations. Bryan's just boring, and he's all we have, so the story is boring despite a small streak of consistency. That said, I will rate this book 5 stars if it was later revealed that Bryan just has a fucking hamburger where his brain should be. No spoilers please.


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--E10: Back on topic. *Benson immediately hits Avelina with the detail that she was referring to Edmond in the past tense,* so this is more than likely a clue to the investigation. Whether or not Patrick thinks this is smart remains to be seen - I wouldn't have wasted a good shot like that so early. Her behavior's... probably odd. It's also dumb (especially in THIS setting) to think someone's dead for being missing "over a day". I'm not too good with people IRL as it is so I rely a lot on my own support circles to gauge signals and reactions in these circumstances.

Naturally, this investigation process is derailed once afuckinggain by *Zero Finals*. I'm pretty sure Blitzball wasn't this intrusive in FFX. But then... but then something extraordinary happens...


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"Zero saved him from that life." I highlighted that in purple this time. This is one and only exact moment that *Zero Finals* should have been mentioned in this chapter! Bryan is receiving Character development!! We learned some history on Bryan!!


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--E11: Benson asks Avelina to show him what Edmond was working on. Da Silva explains that Dr. Laraby's research pertains to wheat seedlings, special variants called *sliders* (but why?) that are a fuckin' marvel of botanical engineering because the original wheat DNA is preserved while they were able to code in a number of extra genetic profiles that allow the plant in question to adapt itself for any environment - a universal crop. Some more interesting revelations include that Tau Ceti G was not the first planned colony, as 'Ceti E and F were targeted but were unfeasible at the time.

Dr. Laraby's graduate dissertation pertained to this work, and only Avelina took him seriously, championing the project. Then we get what at first glance appears to be a random distraction on matters of faith, but I'm holding my judgment on that. Nevertheless, there's some back and forth on how Avelina and her team may be playing God and that Earth's destruction may or may not have been God's influence, but it's shaky and debilitating to read. Not to mention, there has been nothing to suggest this would be even worth mentioning in the first place.


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--E12: Just as soon as I had read the previous entry, we get more dry explanations that feel seriously out of place to me. The entire investigation has been paused for nearly a page or two worth of text on religion and if the implausible Nibiru black hole that suddenly appeared is God's doing. We still have no idea what caused Earth to become uninhabitable, what *the End* was, and Nibiru is paradoxically described as only accelerating that process. The wording of this entire sequence also confuses the Hell out of me: is Earth actually gone, in the present? Has it died? Is it dying? I'm operating under the assumption that *the End* already happened and Earth is gone.

I don't care about Nibiru, to be honest. The real stuff in this story is Tau Ceti, the Ark, the tangible concepts. It's crazy to just drop in how this black hole defies all currently held laws of science and *merely accelerated* the process of Earth dying. Why does this matter at all? **Where even is the Ark in relation to Nibiru? How close are they to Tau Ceti G in the present?!**


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--E13: A semi-important tangent is delivered by Avelina, who then immediately does a (fart) at the end with more poop humor. I'm pretty checked out by this point, though, and I'm glazing hard. I did not miss that the Codes of Conservation were elucidated upon in this, though, but something that important could have been woven together with other topics and much earlier.


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--E14: I'm once again foregoing a special mentions because there's another tangled web of this-and-that. Avelina devalues the clue from Chapter 2 about Edmond's apartment being *too neat and sterile*, and then has nothing to offer on his tastes in art deco, which I find, for some reason, to be incredibly stupid. Almost as stupid as the use of "push off" to mean "leaving" in this context, because it's a *Zero Finals* term and we simultaneously know too much about *Zero Finals* and not enough for that to be a unique, intuitive phrase!

The chapter does not end as primly as Patrick thought it did. At least we now know that in two weeks they will arrive at Tau Ceti G and that is when *the Flip* will occur. Chapter 1 also contained a reference to this "two week" measurement but only told us it was part of *the Flip* without so much as some subtle direction that it's when they fucking arrive. Instead, it was referred to as a "fundamental shift", which meant jack and shit in that context.

After a tedious preparation just to meet with Director Avelina Pereira da Silva, head of Environmental R&D, Benson learns practically nothing useful from the missing doctor's boss. Da Silva championed Edmond's project when everyone else doubted and called him a lunatic, and she had surprisingly little to offer. Aside from battering a harmless waitservant, Benson's time, in my opinion, was completely wasted by this excursion.

Half of Chapter 2 clued us into Tau Ceti G and all sorts of interesting details, concluding on them quite well. Chapter 3 should have took that and ran with it after introducing us to Avelina. All that we've learned from her is that Edmond was creating a miracle crop poised to sustain humanity not just on Tau Ceti G, but on its neighboring planets & moons. There are hints of interesting sci-fi discussion going on, but they're mired in horseshit, and furthermore...

Avelina herself is also NOT a character. She appears to be rich, classy, a nobility type, and yet she speaks like a barfly. There's no gravitas to her presence, and the double-whammy shoehorning of both God and the Nibiru black hole lost me completely. Every single character, Devorah included to an extent, in this story has existed only as a caricature of the human beings that Patrick believes would occupy these roles.

He shouldn't have called it The Ark. The See-Saw would have been a better title with how many times we vacillate from plot to bullshit and back again.
 
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I clipped that bit because it also includes him, yet again, stating that he's not going to pay Quasi and admits that he might be going to jail.
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What a sore loser.
Does he realize that he has to pay wether he goes to prison or not?
That he is prolonging the Lulz for the stalker childs?
That he is potentially providing Quasi with a high-interest investment?
That he will owe MORE fees and maybe lose his house and personal belonging, maybe even THE RIGHTS TO HIS NOVELS?
 
I can't get over this dumb fat faggot boasting that he couldn't get rid of even a suitcase full of books, and had six left. How many books can you even fit in a suitcase, and is this lardass actually claiming he can carry a suitcase full of books (PROTIP it is heavy).

Even by his own probably false and inflated claims, that means that at best, he managed to give away, for free, for no money at all, not even a full suitcase of books. He had six left. And was tweeting angrily at people during the very time he was sitting alone with absolutely nobody in line who had any interest in him, this fat failure, this fucking fuckup, this jerkoff loser.
 
What a sore loser.
Does he realize that he has to pay wether he goes to prison or not?
That he is prolonging the Lulz for the stalker childs?
That he is potentially providing Quasi with a high-interest investment?
That he will owe MORE fees and maybe lose his house and personal belonging, maybe even THE RIGHTS TO HIS NOVELS?
considering how fragile the rights to his twitter avatar and profile background art were, his rights to his novels must be sitting in an open, unlocked footlocker somewhere. whoever owns the building would be happy to just get rid of them if somebody asked to take possession.
 
It is just funny because even if he goes to jail for refusing to pay, what does he think is going to happen when he gets out?
It isn't like a fine where you get the choice of pay "xyz" or spend some time in the jail, you still have to pay when you get out.
Once patrick get out he'll start the post prison arc where he tells the stalker child's they wouldn't survive a day in prison like him and if they had been in jail together he would have raped them since he's a tough guy
I can't get over this dumb fat faggot boasting that he couldn't get rid of even a suitcase full of books, and had six left. How many books can you even fit in a suitcase, and is this lardass actually claiming he can carry a suitcase full of books (PROTIP it is heavy).

Even by his own probably false and inflated claims, that means that at best, he managed to give away, for free, for no money at all, not even a full suitcase of books. He had six left. And was tweeting angrily at people during the very time he was sitting alone with absolutely nobody in line who had any interest in him, this fat failure, this fucking fuckup, this jerkoff loser.
He probably took 7 books and forgot one at the signing table
 
What a sore loser.
Does he realize that he has to pay wether he goes to prison or not?
That he is prolonging the Lulz for the stalker childs?
That he is potentially providing Quasi with a high-interest investment?
That he will owe MORE fees and maybe lose his house and personal belonging, maybe even THE RIGHTS TO HIS NOVELS?

He is probably in denial, because he doesn't have the money. He cant pay, so he doesn't pay. And he denies it, because he is stupid, and cannot admit to any personal fault ever.
 
I'm overthinking it and it should be interpreted literally... and how literally i'm still not sure lol. to be honest i'm completely unfamiliar with what you mean by "generational none" and would be very interested to hear you elaborate more on that and related science-fiction works.
My fault for skipping a hyphen should have read "generational none-Bussard"

There's always been pseudoscientific / magical warp drives and near instantaneous space drives since the first space opera (Doc Smith's Skylark series springs to mind). They still exist in most modern entertainment - think Luke flying his Xwing to Dagobah.

The age of the space opera was fairly brief though - most of the golden age writers were also scientists and started attempting to make their plots more believable based on projections of the science at the time. So most reasonably near future sci-fi since the 50s accepted that it is a big universe and the only way to really get anywhere with people is by sending off a ship and letting the crew's grandchildren (or further) hopefully not be too feral to do the actual colonising - a generation ship. It's a good concept, ripe for everything from dystopias to disasters and pretty much every author has had a go. (By far my favorites are Tau Zero and Orphans of the Sky, which conveniently enough represent the two types of ship designs)

Type one, and the technologically easiest is what Fat seems to be going for in this novel - It carries it's fuel and supplies with it, so the engines can't be running all the time. Fire the engines (sometimes with external help) to leave the home system, glide most of the way, then physically turn the ship arse to target and fire the engines again to decelerate. These are, needless to say, very fucking slow.

Type two is the Bussard ramjet, which uses interstellar hydrogen as fuel. The engines can thus be run constantly, making it much faster from the crew's perspective as they can continually accelerate and play with relativistic effects. Most of the original crew will, murders and other violence permitting, make it to the destination. As bussard ramjets physically scoop up hydrogen and either use or divert dust, they can't usually be flipped to decelerate. A sudden flood of ions and small dust hitting the non-scoop protected end of the ship at significant fractions of the speed of light isn't exactly a recipe for uncooked crewmembers./SPOILER]
 
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